Sully’s Inferno

The following is an excerpt from Part One:


Smashing sounds of an enormous steel door clamping shut on my heels cause me to shutter. The crash reverberates throughout the expanse of cement and metal. Ten heads turn in unison. Motionless bodies seated along steel benches and propped against gray painted cinderblock walls begin to nudge each other with elbows and knees. I avert my glance to the foot-worn concrete path leading through the jumpsuit-clad brigade. Most are staggered in front of an overhead mounted television. A blaring news report pierces the pressure.

Blood-chilling stares pound at me like a relentless migraine. Twenty feet seems like a marathon. A plastic crate clasped in my arms helps to prevent my nervous spasms from being obvious. At least, I am praying that it does. At long last I reach the base of the steps leading to cell twelve. I start to breathe again. The electronically locked door drones open as I hop up the stairs. I scurry inside the cubicle, collapsing with my load and pulling the door shut nearly in one motion. I do not have the nerve to look back out at the festering mob.

The experience of seeing a prison from the inside looking out is new to me. I stand numbly, staring through the Plexiglas. It measures just slightly more than the width of my head by four feet tall, starting at around waist height. The double-paned glass extends to inches from the cracked and pitted, once-white ceiling. A steel bar, thick as a large toothpaste tube, breaches the length of the smoggy window which offers a strained view of the cold, hard asphalt below. The bar is securely bolted to the top and bottom of the weather-worn masonry that frames the parallel sheets of thick glass.

The edge of the parking-lot-style yard is enclosed by a double row of tall chain link fencing. The row closer to the building is densely garlanded along the top with Slinky-type attachments the size of hula-hoops. These metallic banana curls with razor like projections repeat in triple fashion ten feet away. The inside of the top, center, and bottom of a parallel outer fence is comparably fortified. I have seen them before from the highway. Now, here they are, up close and personal; so close, and so dreadfully personal.

Scratched onto the filmy surface of the narrow window, much like you might expect to see on the wall of a public toilet stall, are various slogans. “Sully sucks”; “Sully’s inferno”; “Bite my dick, Sully, you bastard.” I turn to face inward, tracking the etched Sully graffiti to the built-in metal desk, which sports several layers of designer prison décor. The base is worn and scraped down to the rusted metal surface. Over that, random blotches of Rustoleum Red bleed through to the next paintbrush-bristle-infused coating of stomach-churning cobalt blue. All of it is finished off with a putrid concoction of leftover paint from throughout the years. It creates an all-encompassing, dirty-underwear effect. Every inch is gouged, to various degrees, with dates and hearts, names, crosses, and messages. “God bless all. Release your hatred.” A litany of sweet Sully sentiments adorn the blasé, butter cream frosting shade of semi-gloss, semi-smut walls.

A similar motif is scrawled around the toilet/sink combo. It spreads to the no-longer-usable, steel wall mirror. The pattern continues, gouged into the industrial strength, steel door. The ceiling is not to be outdone by its surrounding menagerie of muck. Markings are splayed onto the fluorescent light box fixture and scribbled incessantly into its frosted Plexiglas cover. Sully hate scrapple inundates the six-by-ten foot cinderblock cell.

Nothing but bluebirds all day long

The following is an excerpt from Part One:



The Blue Jay, native to North America, is regarded as an aggressive bird. It is famous for chasing other birds from feeders and other food sources. It is known to even mob and chase predatory birds, such as hawks and owls, which occasionally feed on them. Even humans are not spared their aggressive treachery. This impressive-on-the-surface creature—with its white face collared by black, and plumage of lavender speckled on the wings and tail with black, white, and sky blue—are classified as omnivores. The Latin word omni translates to “all,” with vorare meaning “to devour.” The North American C/O can well be considered its human counterpart.

911 is all it takes

The following is an excerpt from the Introduction:


Our adopted son and accuser… alleged sexual abuse charges against us in retaliation for a perceived injustice. He fits the profile for ASPD, Anti-Social Personality Disorder... By the age of fourteen Cole displayed textbook indicators of ASPD, to the letter. The exception is that he was not failing in school…

By no means are we Cole’s original victims. We will surely not be the last. While in custody, through associations with other falsely accused “offenders,” it became obvious to me that manipulating the law can be an incredibly simple process. A disgruntled and less-than-sane or ethical individual can initiate retribution at the touch of a cell phone keypad. Scorned wives and girlfriends generate the majority of these accusations. They are well aware that a 911 call is all it takes. The “scoundrel” will be hauled off in handcuffs, thrown into a cell where he will “learn his lesson.”

Part One of this publication is a chronicle about the horrific battle behind bars. It is transcribed from a contemporaneous journal I kept while awaiting trial, through nearly nine months of confinement. There are minor alterations, mostly cosmetic repairs, completed in editing. My diary includes various accounts of episodes involving two young children, leading to our unjust arrest.

Part Two recounts particulars of court proceedings and behind-the-scenes developments that led to plea-bargaining and reentry into society. What lies beyond that cannot even be speculated. Characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s memory. Names have been changed to protect the innocent and shield the guilty.

deNile is not a river

The following is an excerpt from the Introduction:

An October 2008 article in Rhode Island Monthly magazine cites the disparaging handling of visitors at the ACI. (Reprint permission granted by Rhode Island Monthly Communications, Inc. ©2010.) In her report Outside These Walls, which was published deliberately after her brother-in-law’s release, Gail Braccidiferro explains, “…the rules defy logic. The only one that was hard and fast: Whatever a guard—or ‘correctional officer’ as they prefer to be called—says, goes. Their word is law, and it’s a law that changes from visit to visit.” Furthermore, as a seasoned reporter who has previously visited and interviewed inmates, she felt “stereotyped, belittled and punished by association.” That is the miniscule tip of an insidious iceberg. She slammed the nail on its proverbial head: “…protesting or asking to talk to a higher authority figure feels not only fruitless, but dangerous. How can I be sure a complaint won’t result in harassment, not for me, but for the person waiting inside?”


The following month, responses printed in the letters to the editor section were varied. One sensible reaction was submitted by a veteran volunteer at the prison: “…belittling treatment…is simply not necessary, when administrators set and enforce standards of good behavior by staff, the public gets good behavior (the reverse is also true).” From another respondent, “Until you’ve walked in their shoes, it’s not fair for her to judge the correctional officers.” This writer clearly is misinformed or simply naïve. In either case, she no doubt is related to someone on the prison staff. The ultimate response is by the Department of Corrections (DOC) director (warden) A.T. Wall: “Our staff repeatedly answered his [Ms. Braccidiferro’s brother-in-law’s] questions.” Conspicuously omitted from his response: “and took action to resolve the issues.”


The director’s remarks state that the rules “may seem strange or illogical to lay people. However, the policies work.” Historically, tyrannical policies worked for many regimes—but to what end and at what cost? Is it possible that this man is so removed from reality that he is living in “deNile”?

Mercy please, Percy.

INCITE—A true story of two men betrayed by their adopted children and tortured for a crime they did not commit.

The following is an excerpt from the Introduction:
 
 
Not all of the correctional officers were berating, obnoxious swine. Out of hundreds, there were a handful of civilized, conscientious staff members. I could count them on two hands, with two fingers to spare. Those five men and three women represented respectability. An emotional conversation with one heroic officer revealed his relentless disapproval of the inexcusable, intolerant conduct that permeated the penal complex. Hostile colleagues routinely harassed him. They went so far as to send threatening Christmas mail to his family. With tears in his eyes, he stated that not a night passed when he did not cry himself to sleep. I know of other novice employees who quit after their exposure to the horrid reality of inner prison dictatorial insanity.

During my eight and one-half month interval at the ACI, I was transferred to eight different modules (mods). Only once did an officer offer a “care package” and towel. By that gesture, I felt I could trust him to help resolve an issue which had arisen with one of his belligerent coworkers, but he was not willing to get involved. I quickly learned that his opposing someone on the prison staff was not prudent, even among his peers. Nevertheless, this persevering soul had a tremendous positive impact on the behavior of inmates in his mod. Respect breeds respect.

The Green Mile, starring Tom Hanks in a brilliant performance as a sane and compassionate prison guard, depicts the attitude of the miniscule minority whom I had the honor of associating with at the ACI, as well as the antagonism of the majority. Percy, a guard, is portrayed in the movie as a mean and rotten psychopath. He exults in inflicting misery at every opportunity. He squashes the life from a circus mouse that belongs to inmate Eduard Delacroix, who is slated for capital punishment. Eduard’s only earthly friend is the furry little rodent. Percy later assists in Eduard’s electric chair execution. He deliberately does not soak water into the sponge, which is to be placed between the skullcap conductor and the victim’s cranium. Percy relishes the thought of watching his prey crisp like blackened catfish at a Cajun cookout.

For the better part of a year, I endured and witnessed similar cruelty. I was haunted by the sight of “Percy.” Even though he assumed many different shapes and sizes. As it is with sand in a dessert windstorm, I was continually accosted by a familiar, unrelenting malice.

That was not as much the case with the RI state marshals. Many of them appeared to be diligent, respectful people. They generally operated in the public view, which may have been a factor contributing toward their acceptable behavior. A select few were fascist monsters, an absolute embarrassment to humankind. We had trouble in a series of incidents involving three different sheriffs. Each occurred in areas where the only witnesses were prisoners. When the prison staff were in public view, as in the visitors’ area of the Intake Service Center, the general level of their conduct was more restrained than when behind barriers.

Corrections?

INCITE—A true story of two men betrayed by their adopted children and tortured for a crime they did not commit.





The following is an excerpt from the Introduction:





For most of my life, I was a member of the elite, holier-than-thou crowd. I was blind to the abject abuse and inhumane treatment of the admitted and the presumed guilty. Amazingly, even in this era, cruelty rages within the penal system. “To understand the humanity of a society, look to their prisons,” said the Russian writer Dostoevsky.



Our institutions are inappropriately labeled as a “corrections system.” I can speak with certainty only about conditions at the Intake Service Center at the Rhode Island Adult Correctional Institution (ACI). We were victimized by the prison staff and state marshals, and underwent unspeakable exploitation. I became privy to many horror stories from other inmates, many of whom I am proud to consider friends. I heard about scores of life-threatening maneuvers occurring in other ACI buildings and at numerous prisons throughout the country.



Although closed circuit cameras were in use in the unit where I was housed, the surveillance was not sufficient to restrain the C/Os (Corrections Officers) from unsavory practices. Spitting in the food trays was routine. Drenching guys with pepper spray was just a teaser: they then got dragged into the elevator to have their daylights pounded out. Guards incited attacks on inmates by their peers as standard procedure. Unkind conduct was unquestionably the norm. Malice and a dictatorial philosophy colored every insalubrious facet of daily “living.”

...it became personal

The following is an excerpt from the Introduction:



What are the implications of being cast into the hell we call prison? Imagine getting a phone call announcing that a loved one is arrested and confined without having broken the law? How might it feel to learn that your partner is locked up in the “care” of barbaric goons for having been in the wrong place at the wrong time? Your husband is crouched naked in a desolate, near freezing, padded cell. In retribution for a perceived indiscretion, someone arbitrarily accuses that “he did this to me,” or “she did that to me.” Your child lies in a puddle of his own blood, teeth smashed out. It is a case of mistaken identity but prison personnel will be certain that he “learns his lesson.” Your dad, accused of a crime not committed, is emotionally browbeaten on a daily basis. Your brother is tortured in solitary confinement because someone has decided to get even.

These are not comforting thoughts. They are, nonetheless, latent realities. It is easy to look at the corrections system with the attitude that “they made their bed, let them sleep in it,” or “they deserve whatever harsh treatment they get, they brought it upon themselves.” It is all too easy to adopt a position of “I do not give a shit what goes on behind bars.” When it is not personal, it is easy to not care. At least for me it was.

Then it became personal.

Behind Bars

The following is an excerpt from the Introduction:



Not in a million lifetimes did I ever imagine myself in prison. The idea never surfaced. Hopping on a space shuttle to Mars or having a second head surgically implanted would have been more conceivable to me. As with unanticipated life events such as car accidents and cancer, the majority of individuals who are conscientious, law-abiding citizens do not commonly consider the prospect of doing time. Nevertheless, it can happen.



I am living proof.



Many people are not disposed to a criminal life and they do not think about the prison experience, not from a personal perspective. Approximately one in every thirty-two Americans gets a shot at having the handcuffs shoved on. The scratch ticket average payoff, according to Wikipedia, is less than one in five. If the criminal justice system were a game—and to many who implement it, it is—I sure would put my effort into selling Jail Bird chances. It would be a great way to cash in on what is rapidly becoming a booming, multi-billion dollar industry.